Direct TV, DishNet, DVR's power usage, and input power Modifications (Discussion)

Re: Direct TV, DishNet, DVR's power usage, and input power Modifications (Discussion)

grounded or not, at those distances it didn't stand much of a chance. you better stock up on the lna/lnbs as it'll happen again.

although the long coaxial line length will diminish the chances of sending a strike/emp downstream it can still do so. this is reason to suspect possible cable damages so watch for degradation in signal. although i understand the no ground thing at the dish, but you better have it go to ground before entering your place. grounding the outer jacket will do just fine as a direct strike will punch through the insulation to the ground braid, but emp may go unimpeded without further measures.
http://www.computercablestore.com/Grounding_Block_Single_F__PID1809.aspx

Re: Direct TV, DishNet, DVR's power usage, and input power Modifications (Discussion)

niel wrote: »

grounded or not, at those distances it didn't stand much of a chance. you better stock up on the lna/lnbs as it'll happen again.

although the long coaxial line length will diminish the chances of sending a strike/emp downstream it can still do so. this is reason to suspect possible cable damages so watch for degradation in signal. although i understand the no ground thing at the dish, but you better have it go to ground before entering your place. grounding the outer jacket will do just fine as a direct strike will punch through the insulation to the ground braid, but emp may go unimpeded without further measures.
http://www.computercablestore.com/Grounding_Block_Single_F__PID1809.aspx

Yup, I'm sure it will with our location. Which is partly why I purchased their protection plan. Contractors cut all 4 coax lines from the dish last week and it only cost (the contractor) the $50 service call under the plan to fix it.

Yes, last time I got zapped it took out the coax and the multiswitch. Grounding the coax at the entry point has been on my to-do list since last time... hasn't happened yet.

Re: Direct TV, DishNet, DVR's power usage, and input power Modifications (Discussion)

Cariboocoot wrote: »

One bit of curious trivia:

The new Telus satellite picture is noticeably better on HD than either Shaw Direct or Shaw Cable.

There's still nothing worth watching, though.

Curious maybe, but not hard to explain.
The broadcast HD signal uses a very wide bandwidth (well, as wide as one old analog channel anyway) and it spreads its energy over uniformly over the whole bandwidth. That gives it a 6Mhz bandwidth and a correspondingly high data transfer rate. If you watch an HD show over the air, you will see all of this detail unless the video has been compressed before getting to the broadcast station.
But older satellite and all cable providers are trying to deliver hundreds of channels and subchannels in a limited bandwidth. So they compress the HD signal as much as they can get away with, losing some quality in the process, especially for rapidly changing images (think sports, for example.)
The compression algorithms which they use are inherently lossy, so there is no way that the best TV set can reconstruct the original picture.
Apparently the Telus satellite has enough power and bandwidth to spare that it can send either a fully uncompressed (broadcast equivalent) signal or one which has been compressed using only a lossless compression algorithm.
Tell me more about Telus service please.

Re: Direct TV, DishNet, DVR's power usage, and input power Modifications (Discussion)

Appreciate your answer "inetdog"!
Good to know what they're up to these days.
And "Coot", looking forward to that picture of the Telus dish. I haven't seen one in this area yet.

Re: Direct TV, DishNet, DVR's power usage, and input power Modifications (Discussion)

I believe there is a bit more to the lousy picture quality that may be buried in what you say Inetdog.

For instance , on the same channel, the Canadian weather network , I have noticed on an analogue cable channel, we sometimes get a fantastic digital map image, so good we can almost see our local berg, and at other times the pixels are so large as to cover 100 Km or more, What I am thinking is that if there is a higher user demand on the HD channels they drop the bandwidth on the analogue channels or compress them more... Make any sense? Just thinking...

Re: Direct TV, DishNet, DVR's power usage, and input power Modifications (Discussion)

westbranch wrote: »

I believe there is a bit more to the lousy picture quality that may be buried in what you say Inetdog.

For instance , on the same channel, the Canadian weather network , I have noticed on an analogue cable channel, we sometimes get a fantastic digital map image, so good we can almost see our local berg, and at other times the pixels are so large s to cover 100 Km or more, What I am thinking is that if there is a higher user demand on the HD channels they drop the bandwidth on the analogue channels or compress them more... Make any sense? Just thinking...

Very interesting. Yes that might be the provider's way to deal with a bandwidth crunch. But there is also the possibility that the provider has actually converted the old analog channels to digital and is requiring a digital to analog converter box to be used with older TVs. Anyway, the pixellated image is often the result of signal interference such that the coarse resolution information is getting through but the finer resolution updates as the picture changes are being dropped. Related to the way that sometimes an Internet jpeg image will appear very coarse at first on a slow connection and then slowly gain in detail.
And a big variable in the whole available bandwidth picture is providing for video on demand (VOD)purchases. That has to come from somewhere.
If you have a DVR, cable companies cheat by sending the current VOD favorites to your DVR very slowly and then showing them to you from disk if you order them. (Don't look at the man behind the curtain!) This hidden pre-recording is why you may have room for 30 hours of your own HD on the built in disk, but when you add exactly the same size external disk or double the size of the internal disk you suddenly have 90 or 120 hours instead of 60.

Re: Direct TV, DishNet, DVR's power usage, and input power Modifications (Discussion)

inetdog wrote: »

BTW Wayne, you can just call me Dog. (Or Dave)

Haha Now if only I could remember that!

Re: Direct TV, DishNet, DVR's power usage, and input power Modifications (Discussion)

waynefromnscanada wrote: »

But if the satellite is transmitting only, it wouldn't matter how many people are receiving the signal, it doesn't get divided down and diluted depending on how many dishes are receiving the signal.

wayne,
if they are able to have the specialized vod they need to receive from many subscribers too making the bird not only transmit many wide band signals, but also a need to receive many requests and interactions with the subscribers. that's a tall task for a bird.

Re: Direct TV, DishNet, DVR's power usage, and input power Modifications (Discussion)

Logan5 wrote: »

I may be incorrect but I believe the satellite used for interactive services is much like a DD-WRT router, in that it has the ability to manage many different unlink connections. as far as the down link, I bet they are all combined into a single stream.

not true as each channel of hd video is transmitted on its own frequency. now it is true that some satellites can get fancy as just a wide banded repeater that inverts the frequency, but it still holds true of what i said and would only reduce the number of transmitters needed. the wider bandwidth transmitters would need to compensate by upping the power greatly. if the satellite was not designed to transmit and receive as many as it is, it could degrade the quality of what is transmitted and received. there are other factors too unrelated like a lowered available power for whatever reason from either the pvs and/or batteries or the bird needs a realignment in its orbit to name a few.

Re: Direct TV, DishNet, DVR's power usage, and input power Modifications (Discussion)

Unfortunately Solarvic, I cannot answer any questions re Telus birds, as until this evening I didn't even know they existed.
But I'd like to learn!

Re: Direct TV, DishNet, DVR's power usage, and input power Modifications (Discussion)

solarvic wrote: »

Anyone listen to CLARK HOWARD on the radio? Today he had callers about how the power co,s in Alanama and Florida have lobyist trying to hold back use of solar. Also someone from Dish called in discussing that Dish is going to have cell phone service on thier satelite.

Cellphone on satellite sounds like a terrible idea to me. There would be a quarter second time lag in conversations. It doesn't sound like a lot, but a quarter second delay in answering a simple question can make you sound like an idiot.

Re: Direct TV, DishNet, DVR's power usage, and input power Modifications (Discussion)

ggunn wrote: »

Cellphone on satellite sounds like a terrible idea to me. There would be a quarter second time lag in conversations. It doesn't sound like a lot, but a quarter second delay in answering a simple question can make you sound like an idiot.

That would be more important if normal ground-based cellular were working at light-speed. But I have found that the data packet switching on a congested network can add more than a full second delay to normal cell conversations. That not only makes you sound like an idiot, it makes you seem rude since you keep interrupting the other person. And do not even attempt it for a conference call.
For people with bad ground-based cellular service (not limited to any single provider, they all do it in places) the constant, predictable, 1/4 second delay might be preferable.

Re: Direct TV, DishNet, DVR's power usage, and input power Modifications (Discussion)

westbranch wrote: »

Sounds like a return to the old 2 way radio practice of saying "OVER" is needed when you are finished....:D

that kind of defeats the best part of what a phone actually does as it allows both to speak and be heard simultaneously (full duplex). to make somebody to actually listen and let somebody complete their words is unheard of in this day and age and most people couldn't deal with that. letting others talk without interrupting is the 2nd most common problem new 2-way radio users encounter as they think they can hit the ptt button and be heard by the other person while they are still talking. the first problem in using 2-way radios is being mic shy.